Royce Lewis Has Heart, Confidence And A Lot Of Talent

While Lewis isn't the household name that Hunter Greene, Brendan McKay and Kyle Wright were to most fans, he has been a huge prospect for quite some time. He has played with Hunter Greene, as he noted, on USA teams 15U and 18U tournaments.

In fact, earlier in the day, Lewis called Greene (who went second to the Reds) and Jordan Adell (who went 10th to the Angels) to wish them luck.

Lewis is a bright young man. He graduated a couple of weeks ago and acknowledged that he gets 'A's and B's."

He's a very confident kid.

When asked if he emulated or patterned his game around any players, he named some pretty impressive shortstops.

"For sure, I had a couple. Carlos Correa is one. Derek Jeter and Francisco Lindor. If you put those three guys together, I feel like you'd get a mixture of Royce Lewis." He continued, "But I know that I'm a very different player than all those guys, and I expect to play differently and act differently than those guys."

I remember sitting at the Cedar Rapids Kernels press conference before their first game as a Twins affiliate in 2013. Byron Buxton was asked about his weaknesses. He sat and thought, and thought. A bit later, Travis Harrison responded, "He does a lot of things really well."

Likewise, Royce Lewis does a lot of things well. He's got tremendous speed, and should develop some power as well.

Asked about his weaknesses, Lewis said, "As far as weaknesses go, I feel like I don't have any at this point."

Honesty. But he did add more to the comment.

"It's just about perfecting. Of course, every kid thinks highly of himself."

Speed is probably his biggest tool at this point. "Speed can be used for everything. Defensively. Offensively. It helps with range. It helps you get a couple of extra base hits when you hit if off the end of the bat. Speeds been there since Day 1. That's my favorite tool because it's always there and it never leaves you."

Asked about his power potential, he said, "That's kind of like a little tidbit. I haven't even grown into my man strength yet. I just turned 18 last week. Being young like this, it's pretty amazing to know that I still have a lot of potential to tap into.

He has a lot of heart. His first comments to the media involved his goal being for his team to win. They came up just short in their season-ending tournament, but winning is a big part of his game. "As Draymond Green says, 'Heart wins over anything.' At the end of the day, I feel like I have more heart than many of the kids and players out there."

Lewis also talked about his mental approach of the game. "I'm looking at four to five plays ahead. The approach at the plate is changing pitch to pitch. For me, it's maturity. My mom says it a lot, I'm a lot older than most kids."

And Lewis is also a leader: "Treating everyone equally. We're all equal, no matter who is better at what sport, or who is the smarter kid in the classroom. As a leader, I try to treat everyone equal. I'm not above or below anyone. We have a lot of fun. For me, I try to lead by example. With all my teammates, we have so much fun together. We compete hard together, and I can't wait to meet my new teammates in Minnesota.

Lewis has never been to Minnesota and says, "I hear it's pretty cold, sometimes. We'll see when I get there. I can handle the weather no matter what."

Lewis has a commitment to UC-Irvine, a school and coaching staff that was impressive to him. When asked if college was out of the question, he responded by saying, "No, not at all. I mean, I don't know what's going to go on. I'm just going to let Mr. Boras and the guys up in Minnesota handle that. We'll see what happens. I do know that I'm locked in either way. It's a win-win for me, so I'm happy."

One Twins employee told me recently (about Lewis), "His makeup is everything a fan base could wish for out of their franchise talent."

Royce Lewis is immensely athletic, a trait the Twins have had tremendous success with developing. He's got room to grow, but he also has some of those intangibles that can't be measured. In other words, he's the complete package.

Next steps? Get him signed and let him start the long process toward the big leagues.